City officials give update on 2018 goals

The city of Columbia has one more year to reach the goals it set for itself in 2015.

The benchmarks were part of Columbia's strategic plan, which aims to improve the city’s economy, social equity, infrastructure and public safety.

City officials gave an annual update on these goals and objectives to the Columbia City Council during its Monday meeting. While the city has made progress in each area there's still work to do in the upcoming months, the officials said.

A primary goal for the economy team working on the strategic plan is to increase the number of living wage jobs that support families, said Stacey Button, president of the Regional Economic Development, Inc. and director of the city’s economic development department.

She said a measure of success is an increase to Boone County’s average wage, which increased from $34,808 in 2015 to $37,442 this year.

The city is also making progress on various training programs it offers or has helped facilitate.

In the spring, 58 students enrolled in the Mechatronics program at Moberly Area Community College and nine of them graduated. Mechatronics is hands-on training with electrical, hydraulic, and pneumatics systems. Local manufacturing firms are in need of mechatronics technicians, according to the strategic plan report. Another 52 students are enrolled for the fall.

Jim Whitt, director of the supplier diversity program development, said he’ll continue his work assisting and promoting minority- and women-owned businesses. Whitt helped develop an online directory of 45 such businesses at mwbe.como.gov, which continues to grow. The city purchased software to identify minority- and women-owned businesses that apply for business permits in order to help measure goals.

Button said the economy team will continue to raise awareness of the city’s supplier diversity programs, develop a cell phone application that will help Columbia Police Department’s community outreach officers connect residents with jobs and make improvements to the Columbia Regional Airport to sustain its number of fliers.

The report says the city is working to identify locations for future police precincts and fire stations to decrease response times. Columbia Police Chief Ken Burton said the initial planning for a new police precinct in northern Columbia is complete.

The Columbia Fire Department is also working on earning special accreditation to design future fire stations in areas that would make its response times less than four minutes, he said.

The strategic plan report also shows the city is not started to seek a sales tax ballot measure to increase staffing at the police department by 70 officers and at the fire department by 30 firefighters within the next three years.

City Manager Mike Matthes has said the city should seek a property tax measure next year to better fund the departments.

A goal of the strategic plan is to increase the percentage of people who feel they can thrive in Columbia from 74 to 79 percent.

The city’s most recent citizen satisfaction survey shows 75 percent of Columbia residents feel like they can thrive in the city.

Among the social equity objectives, the vast majority — 24 different objectives — are in progress, such as creating programs that unify neighborhoods, assessing neighborhood needs and establishing affordable housing policies, according to the report.

The city also wants to continue partnering with the Shelter Insurance Foundation to provide scholarships for students in the strategic neighborhoods.

Another way to make more progress in the next year, particularly on social equity, would be to compensate emerging leaders in the city’s strategic neighborhoods for their time working to improve those neighborhoods, Fourth Ward Councilman Ian Thomas said. The positions would be similar to that of Judy Hubbard and Glenn Cobbins, community engagement specialists for the city, he said.

The city has been hosting community meetings in the city’s three strategic neighborhoods in the north, east and central areas. From those meetings, residents in those neighborhoods have become active leaders and have started requesting resources from the city.

Hubbard said “strong, indigenous leadership has risen” in the strategic neighborhoods through the strategic plan implementation.

“They give us a common bond when we work together on the strategic plan, and we become repairers of the streets we dwell in,” she said regarding the community leaders.

Thomas’ suggestion followed Hubbard’s testimony, in which she told numerous stories exemplifying the strategic plan and her and Cobbins’ work. In one story, they met a 25-year-old, low-income man, who needed black rubber-sole shoes for his new job and money to travel to a funeral of a close family member.

Hubbard became emotional talking about how desperate the man was, trying to decide how to afford both the shoes and travel to the funeral.

“By 4 o’clock that afternoon, he had the shoes, he had groceries and he had hope,” she said. “He went to the funeral the next week with all of his family. What was the cost of giving this young man hope? The cost of a $27 pair of shoes and a tank of gas.”

Deputy city manager John Glascock, who leads the infrastructure team, said CPD’s community outreach unit has distributed 320 bus passes and will continue to do so in the future. The parks and recreation department has added more than 21 acres of park space and installed a new playground in the Indian Hills area, which is within a strategic neighborhood.

Building more bus shelters, widening the shoulder of Route PP and construction sidewalks on Auburn Lane, Lindy Lane and Oakland Gravel are future infrastructure goals.